I was reading another thread and I read that if a shield is on the ground it cannot be broken by a red hit. Is this an official rule or an unwritten rule? I read the Book of War and it only states that a shield can be broken by a two handed red swing, but it didn't say the shield had to be held by a person at that time. It makes sense that a shield on the ground wouldn't be broken because no one can determine if the red hit was hard enough, but is this an actual rule?

The only reason I'm asking is because people in my realm do break shields when they are on the ground, and if I try to contradict them, they state that a red hit to any shield counts.

Oh, and I also read the unwritten rules, but there isn't anything in there that talks about shield on ground hits.

Edit:

Does this apply to national events?

It's not so much an unwritten rule as it is common sense. The rules state that the person using the shield determines if a red hit is hard enough to break the shield. If a shield is laying on the ground, no one is using it, so no one can determine if the strike was hard enough to break the shield.

Edit your original post if you need further clarification.

In response to your edit, yes. It applies everywhere that these rules are used, unless a realm has a specific rule in place saying shields on the ground can be broken.

Cyric, what about a bow lying on the ground?

That's a different story, since bows don't have a minimum force requirement for breakage. usually it's enough to tap one that's lying on the ground and call it broken. Its best to do that in view or attention of a herald, or at least other fighters on both teams. We don't need people going around whaling bows that are lying around.

So to break a ground shield, the red wielder could prop the shield up on an ankle and then break the shield?

I am using what you said in the other post to figure this out.

yes. if you really wanted to break a shield on the ground that badly, you could prop the shield up on your leg, and break it, if you got two good red shots on it. I do not feel that propping it up on just your ankle would be good enough. You would need to have the shield protecting a significant portion of yourself in order to be considered wielding it. Just sticking your foot under a shield wouldn't be enough if I were marshaling that fight.

A much "better" way to do it would be to have a team mate pick up the shield and hold it while you break it, if you're that desperate to deny the other team a discarded sheild.


As a side note, I would hope to god some archer would shoot you in the face while you were wasting that much time on a battlefield, or a marshal would tell you to get on with it if you just went around breaking discarded shields instead of fighting..

I would hope that a fast sneaky enemy could show up out of nowhere and get a THIRD or even FOURTH hit on that shield before it could be dropped.